Soldier killed fighting in Gaza as IDF withdraws brigade from northern Strip

Staff Sgt. Ido Samiach, 20, slain in battle, bringing ground op death toll to 395; military says after months in Beit Lahiya and Beit Hanoun, Kfir Brigade preparing for other ops

Staff Sgt. Ido Samiach (Courtesy)
Staff Sgt. Ido Samiach (Courtesy)

An IDF soldier was killed on Tuesday fighting in Gaza, as the military announced it was pulling a brigade from the northern Strip in order to prepare for future operations.

The slain soldier was named as Staff Sgt. Ido Samiach, 20, a team sergeant in the Nahal Brigade’s reconnaissance unit, from Ganei Tikva, killed in northern Gaza.

The previous day, two other soldiers — Cpt. Eitan Israel Shiknazi, 24, and Maj. Dvir Zion Revah, 28 — were killed fighting in northern Gaza’s Beit Hanoun. The latest death brings Israel’s toll in the ground offensive against Hamas in Gaza and in military operations along the border with the Strip to 395.

The Hamas-run Gaza health ministry claimed Tuesday that 31 people were killed in the Strip over the past 24 hours, including four killed in an airstrike on a house in Gaza City.

Also Tuesday, the IDF said the Kfir Brigade has been withdrawn from the northern Gaza Strip after 64 days of fighting, though an operation in the area led by the 162nd Division is still ongoing. According to the IDF, the Kfir Brigade killed more than 300 terror operatives during their operations in the towns of Beit Lahiya and Beit Hanoun and in the Sheikh Zayed neighborhood.

Among the dead operatives are many prominent members of terror groups, including some who participated in the October 7, 2023, onslaught, the IDF said.

During the two-month operation, 12 soldiers with the brigade were killed in six separate incidents of fighting, and dozens more were wounded, though many have since returned to service, according to the IDF.

Troops of the Kfir Brigade operate in the northern Gaza Strip, in a handout photo issued by the IDF on January 7, 2025. (Israel Defense Forces)

The military said the brigade’s operations were aimed at removing threats to residents of Israeli communities close to the Gaza border in the Strip’s north.

The brigade was responsible for demolishing the so-called officers’ neighborhood, where Hamas commanders had lived. The residential complex of high-rise towers had served as a “central terror complex” with anti-tank firing positions, booby traps, tunnels and rocket launchers aimed at Israel, according to the military.

The IDF said the brigade demolished other Hamas infrastructure, including 7.5 kilometers’ (4.6 miles’) worth of tunnels, and captured numerous weapons. The Kfir Brigade is now preparing for future operations in Gaza, the IDF said, including being deployed to the Philadelphi Corridor in the Strip’s south.

Meanwhile COGAT, the Israeli government’s liaison to the Palestinians, said Tuesday that it had facilitated the transfer of some 1,100 truckloads of humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip over the past week.

“In accordance with a directive of the political echelon, efforts to transfer aid to the Gaza Strip continue in coordination with COGAT,” it said in a statement. “As part of these efforts, over 1,070 humanitarian aid trucks carrying food, water, medical supplies, and shelter equipment were brought into Gaza over the past week, with more than 1,100 trucks unloaded on the Gazan side of the crossings.”

COGAT vowed to “continue working to allow and facilitate the entry of humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip in collaboration with aid organizations and the international community.” It said that all of the shipments were thoroughly inspected by the Defense Ministry’s Land Crossings Authority.

Smoke rises following an explosion in the Gaza Strip, as seen from southern Israel, Jan. 7, 2025. (AP/Ariel Schalit)

A Hamas official on Tuesday reiterated the group’s long-held demand for Israel to completely end its war in Gaza in order to reach any deal to free the 100 hostages still held there.

Hamas official Osama Hamdan, who held a news conference in Algiers, said Israel was to blame for undermining all efforts to reach a deal.

While he said he would not give details about the latest round of negotiations, he reiterated the Hamas conditions of “a complete end to the aggression and a full withdrawal from lands the occupation invaded.”

Commenting on US President-elect Donald Trump’s threat that there would be “hell to pay” unless all hostages were freed before the inauguration, Hamdan said: “I think the US president must make more disciplined and diplomatic statements.”

An earlier version of this story included an incorrect toll of Israeli soldiers killed in the Gaza Strip.

Agencies contributed to this report.

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